Ayodhya verdict: Ram Lalla comes home, a new Masjid to rise

New Delhi: In an unprecedented case based on faith and belief, the Supreme Court on Saturday “unanimously” paved the way for the construction of Lord Ram’s temple at Ayodhya as it rejected the Muslim claim over the disputed site and handed over the entire 1,500 square yard of the “composite” disputed area comprising the inner and the outer court yard of the now demolished Babri Masjid to a trust that would construct the temple and would be set up by the Central government in next three months.

The disputed land would remain in the custody of the statutory receiver till the Trust is formed and the land handed over to it. The court said that the Central government would be at “liberty to make suitable provisions in respect of the rest of the acquired land by handing it over to the trust” for its management and development.

The verdict was delivered by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi who along with Chief Justice designate Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer had heard the matter for 40 days — from August 6 to October 16.

The hearing was rooted in a batch of petitions challenging September 30, 2010, Allahabad High Court judgment in which the disputed site was divided into three parts with Hindu litigants — the Idol of Ram Lalla and Nirmohi Akhara getting one part each and Muslims’ Sunni Waqf Board the third.

The top court described the High Court judgment as “legally unsustainable”.

Handing over the entire disputed site for the construction of Lord Ram’s temple, the top court ordered giving Muslims a “suitable” five-acre plot either by the Central government out of the acquired 67 acres of land or by the UP government at a “suitable prominent place in Ayodhya.”

The court said that both the creation of trust and handing over the entire disputed site to it and giving Sunni Waqf Board five acres of land would be done simultaneously.

Justifying the allotment of land to Muslims, the court said, “The allotment of land to the Muslims is necessary because though on a balance of probabilities, the evidence in respect of the possessory claim of the Hindus to the composite whole of the disputed property stands on a better footing than the evidence adduced by the Muslims …”

“… the Muslims were dispossessed upon the desecration of the mosq-ue on 22/23 December 1949 which was ultimately destroyed on 6 December 1992. There was no abandonment of the mosque by the Muslims,” said the court.

The court said that the Sunni Central Waqf Board would be at liberty on the allotment of the land to take all necessary steps for the construction of a mosque on the land allotted together with other associated facilities.

The court ordered giving Sunni Waqf Board five acreas of “suitable” land at Ayodhya taking recourse to its plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.

On the inner court yard on which Babri Masjid stood since 1528 till Dece-mber 6, 1992 when it was demolished, the court said. “As regards the inner courtyard, there is evidence on a preponderance of probabilities to establish worship by the Hindus prior to the annexation of Oudh by the British in 1857.”

Rejecting the Muslim claim over the disputed site under the three domes of the now demolished Babri Masjid, also described as inner court yard, the court said: “The Muslims have offered no evidence to indicate that they were in exclusive possession of the inner structure prior to 1857 since the date of the construction in the sixteenth century. After the setting up of the grill-brick wall, the structure of the mosque continued to exist and there is evidence to indicate that namaz was offered within its precincts.”

Recalling that the Babri mosque was “desecrated” on the intervening night of 22/23 December, 1949, and the exclusion of Muslims from “worship and possession” of the mosque, the court said: “The ouster of the Muslims on that occasion was not through any lawful authority but through an act which was calculated to deprive them of their place of worship.”

The court further noted that after the entire disputed site was taken over and receiver appointed in 1950, the worship of Hindu idols placed in the inner courtyard right under the central dome of Babri Masid was permitted.

Saying that the Muslims have been “wrongly deprived of a mosque which had been constructed well over 450 years ago”, the judgment says, “during the pendency of the suits, the entire structure of the mosque was brought down in a calculated act of destroying a place of public worship.”

Noting that the Hindus have not brought on record any document showing the conferment of the title of the disputed site to them and had just produced records showing grants received by them for maintaining the mosque, the court said, “This document, even if it is accepted as authentic, indicates a grant for specific purposes and does not confer the title to the disputed land.”

The five

Ranjan Gogoi,
Chief Justice of India

The 46th Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, born in 1954, joined the Bar in 1978, and was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court in 2012. In October last year, he was appointed Chief Justice of India. He has heard several landmark cases, including one pertaining to National Citizens Register. In an unprecedented move in January 2018, he along and other Supreme Court judges held a press conference to express their displeasure with CJI Dipak Misra. On April 19, 2019, a former female Supreme Court employee accused CJI Gogoi of sexual misconduct. In response, he convened an extraordinary hearing and denied the charges. Many jurists and lawyers were shocked at the “procedural impropriety” shown by him. He was later issued a clean chit by a SC inquiry panel.

Sharad Arvind Bobde,
CJI-designate

Born in 1956 in Nagpur, Justice S.A. Bobde got his BA and LLB degrees from Nagpur University and enrolled in the Roll of the Bar Council of Maharashtra in 1978. Justice Bobde practised law at the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay high court with appearances in Bombay before the principal seat and also before the Supreme Court for over 21 years.
Justice Bobde was designated a senior advocate in 1998 and was elevated to the bench of the Bombay High Court as additional judge in 2000. He was sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2012 and elevated as a judge of Supreme Court next year. His retirement is due in April 2021. Justice Bobde will be the next CJI, taking charge on November 18, after Justice Gogoi demits office.

Ashok Bhushan,
SC judge

Justice Ashok Bhushan, born in 1956 in Jaunpur, UP, obtained a law degree from Allahabad University in 1979 and was elevated as a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court in 2001 and as a judge of the Supreme Court in 2016.
Justice Bhushan joined the bench dealing with Ayodhya matter months after delivering a relatively important judgment on September 27, 2018, in which a three-member bench refused to refer to five-judge Constitution bench a 1994 verdict which held that mosque was not integral to offering prayers in Islam. Writing for himself and then CJI Dipak Misra, he declined the request that the 1994 judgment be sent to a larger bench as it would have a bearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute.

D. Y. Chandrachud,
SC judge

In May 2016, Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. Previously he was the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court.
Justice Chandrachud, born in 1959, was appointed as the additional solicitor-general in 1998. He practised law at the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court. A Delhi University graduate, Justice Chandrachud obtained his LLM degree and a doctorate in juridical sciences from Harvard Law School.
He is known to have overturned several rulings believed to have turned obsolete with time. Some such verdicts, including those on the adultery law and the right to privacy, were handed down from his father, Y. V. Chandrachud, the longest serving Chief Justice of India.

S. Abdul Nazeer,
SC judge

Justice S. Abdul Nazeer practised in the Karnataka High Court for 20 years after he enrolled as an advocate in February 1983. Born in 1958, Justice Nazeer was appointed as an additional judge of the Karnataka High Court in 2003 and as a permanent judge in 2004. He was elevated as Supreme Court judge in 2017. He is one among a very few in India who became a Supreme Court judge without becoming Chief Justice of any of the High Courts in the country.
Justice Nazeer was part of the five-judge bench in the “triple talaq” matter but had delivered a minority verdict along with then Chief Justice of India J. S. Khehar. They upheld the validity of the practise of Triple Talaq based on that fact that it is permissible under Muslim Sharia Law.